The Birth Rate Is Not Falling Because Women Are Failing

Amid a global drop in fertility, it seems women alone are being held responsible. But why?

Sabrina Jurain, regional advisor of data and population dynamics at the United Nations Population Fund in Latin America and the Caribbean, sees an unhealthy pattern. “Too often, public discourse reduces fertility decisions to women’s personal preferences or blames women for ‘not wanting more,’ without considering the emotional, relational, economic and structural struggles behind that decision,” according to Jurain.

Women take the heat while men largely escape scrutiny or criticism for decisions about having or not having children—but they are half the equation.

For decades, I have tracked family size and the changes that have led to the one-child family becoming the fastest-growing family unit. The deficits and choices women face force them to adjust, sacrifice, or scramble to have a family and hold a job. Women take the brunt of the censure for their family-size decisions—particularly those who choose to have one child or no children.

At the same time, men’s significant role is mostly ignored. But that doesn’t square with the reality: Fertility is a team game, and men should share in any “blame” for fewer babies being born.

Finger Pointing Around Declining Birth Rates

While some men are stepping up in many areas related to parenting, they too often get a pass in matters of fertility. Yet research shows they are involved in about half of infertility cases. So it’s time men share the responsibility for the drop in births, which we have been witnessing for a long time.

Gloria Feldt, former president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America and co-founder of Take The Lead, told me that “the debate over declining fertility rates echoes a dynamic Margaret Atwood warned about decades ago in The Handmaid’s Tale: When fertility becomes a societal concern, scrutiny quickly shifts to women’s choices while largely overlooking men’s role, workplace structures, economic barriers, and cultural expectations around caregiving.”

Until now, Feldt maintains, “fertility has always been treated as women’s work. The total fertility rate is literally measured by counting births per woman. Men’s reproductive choices, behaviors, and responsibilities are not systematically tracked the same way.”

Demographers and economists worry about women having less than 2.1 babies, the number typically perceived as required to keep the population and economy stable. Governments throughout the developed world have been offering bonuses for babies to little avail. Meanwhile, women continue to shoulder the burden of these expectations.

“When experts construct theories about birthrates, they reach first for what women are doing or not doing,” Feldt says. “This is not biology. Biology says sperm are required. This is ideology — the ideology that reproduction is fundamentally a female responsibility and a female problem.”

Change the Fertility Conversation by Asking Different Questions

Feldt suggests changing the conversation by asking different questions. Among them:

• “Why are men, particularly young men in wealthy countries, increasingly disengaged from serious partnership and co-parenting?”
• “If the structural theory is correct — that inflexible workplaces make parenthood too costly — why is the solution always aimed at enabling women to manage that burden better, rather than requiring men to share it equally?”
• “When we talk about cultural shifts, why do we assume cultural values belong primarily to women making reproductive choices, rather than to men who are equally less interested in commitment, sacrifice, and the long responsibility of raising another human?”

Changing the Fertility Blame Game

“The birth rate is not falling because women are failing,” Feldt insists. “It’s falling because the systems, structures, and social expectations built around reproduction have not adapted to a world where women have options that work.”

Instead, society is quick to chastise when women decide not to have children or are “one and done.” Women are criticized as being too into their careers or selfish for not having a family or multiple children.

“The question worth asking is why, the moment women use their hard-earned power, the whole world treats it as a crisis — and why the answer is always to look at her and not him,” Feldt stresses.

Policy changes in corporations and companies run by men that improve job flexibility and that address the dearth of viable child care would help. Providing parental leave that men seem to take in minimal amounts is not enough. Men stepping up to take on a greater share of household responsibilities would be another place to start. More men are doing this, but women still carry a disproportionate share of the load.

Some in powerful and highly visible positions are against feminist progress and encourage women to put family above career: to stay home, have babies, and let men be the sole providers. But in our changed society, that kind of rhetoric probably won’t move the needle and increase the birth rate.

It is time, instead, to change the conversation and focus on men. If we can recognize that men have a key role beyond providing sperm, put them more center stage in raising their children, and hold them partially accountable for falling birth rates, perhaps fertility outcomes will change.

Recent history, however, suggests otherwise. Having more babies doesn’t appear to be the direction for the foreseeable future. Nonetheless, if we recognize men’s true role in fertility choices, we can free women from shouldering all of the criticism.